Emotions. For years I watched my mom crippled with depression, swallowing her emotions along with the people around her. Her emotions took her down. And for years I tried to help her when she didn't want it. I didn't realize how trapped the energy was inside of her. How unsafe she felt speaking her desires due to her childhood. And how trapped she felt. Life contains pain but suffering is optional when we see the emotion as useful for us. The depression was a doorway for her for growing with the source of the trauma which takes going back and healing in order to fully move on. And typically we don't move on until we feel gratefulness for what happened.
Our body speaks to us through pain. It tells us where to focus energy and attention. But we don't need to get stuck in emotional spirals. We can recognize, accept, acknowledge, and continue on. Our emotions for many of us get stuck in the body. And you can't just get "rid" of emotions, you have to work through emotions in order to release them. The desire to get rid of an emotions actually makes it harder to release the emotion because the focus/energy is on the "rid". Emotion has to be dealt with at its source & when the focus shifts to empathy for the emotion, the emotion is recognized and can be released. It starts with total acceptance. We also have to clean the energy in the body daily through dancing, moving, intense breathing, whatever it is. Working out is not just for looking good, it is for our mind and our emotional health. It doesn't have to be intense. It can be cleansing.
So what do you do when you are in an emotional spiral? Recognize the emotion, sit with it, feel the source of it, acknowledge and work through the source, move the energy out of the body through movement/expression like dance or running. Then transfer that energy into something emotionally creative. Write. Sing. Speak. Paint.